Band-Aids Don't Fix Bullet Holes
by ayeofnewt
Summary: Ben keeps his hood because it's the only thing he can do to protect his brother. (AU)


**WARNING FOR DISCUSSION OF SUICIDE**

** I tried to keep things as non-graphic as possible while still conveying the relevant information. If you need to know more before reading, please feel free to message me. Please do what is best for your safety.**

**The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-TALK (8255)**

**A free, 24/7 confidential service that can provide people in suicidal crisis or emotional distress, or those around them, with support, information, and local resources.**

**Crisis Text Line: 741-741**

**This free text-message service provides 24/7 support to those in crisis. Text 741-741 to connect with a trained crisis counselor right away.**

**If you are thinking of harming yourself, or if you are worried that someone you love might hurt themselves, please reach out for help.**

When the other six children asked Klaus what the ghosts looked like, he would just shrug and tell them, "What they looked like when they died". They had been rather disappointed by that answer, hoping for something more interesting like what they saw in the movies. Images of glowing, transparent spirits that hovered ominously the air where dashed and they quickly lost interest in Klaus' power. There was nothing especially cool about normal-looking people, other than that they were dead and Klaus could see them. But they didn't realize how literal Klaus had been when he said "when they died.''

Klaus' staunch denial that ghosts looked anything like Hollywood depictions meant that Ben never realized that ghosts took their cause of death with them, or imagined that a spirit could be mangled and bloody. If he had, Ben would have chosen a different exit from his own life. Though to be fair, he had never intended, or expected, to come back in the first place. In his desperation and isolation from everyone except the horrors that lived inside of him, Ben could only imagine death as an escape to a place beyond his body where Reginald could not follow him. He was unable to fathom the regret and incomprehensible cold that would drown him while the shot still rang in his ears. If he had been able to comprehend the meaning of eternity and the warmth of life, Ben would have clung on to his survival with the same desperation that would later plead with Klaus to feel.

But Ben didn't know any of that when he was twenty-one and suffocating.

Dying was different than he had imagined. There was no quiet or relief. Only sound, echoing endlessly through his head, the shot suspended like an opera singer's last note, vibrating though the rafters of Ben's body. It was all that existed. There was no time, only the same moment ever renewing. Ben could not think, only hear. After, he would wonder how he could remember it when he didn't have a mind.

When time began again, the sound began to dim, like the vibrations of a fork, ringing softer and softer until they were gone. From the silence, a second sound came. A steady beating thrum of life that called out to him. Ben, terrified to know for the first time that time was a grain of sand in the existence that awaited him, that he had been so quick to meet, reached out and grabbed hold. Clinging to the strange and intangible rope that had pulled him back, Ben found himself in the world again, miles away from the body that he had left in the Academy.

After the Nothingness of death, the swirl of lights and pounding sound of the club felt like an assault on Ben's grieving and confused body. He swayed and stumbled, feeling an intense sense of vertigo that only worsened as he realized that he could not feel the warmth of the bodies that pressed up against him; or rather, he noticed in abject horror, the bodies that passed through his own as if he were nothing more than air. Trying to orient himself in the confusing mass of Living, Ben searched for the source of the tether that he had followed back out of Nothing. Through a break in the mass of people, Ben caught a glimpse of blessed familiarity. Klaus, dressed in a bizarre collection of clothing that somehow seemed exactly appropriate, if only because he was wearing it, was turning away from a bored looking man, clutching a small baggie triumphantly in his hand. "Klaus," Ben whispered, in an almost pleading voice. Though there was no logical way he could have heard Ben above the terrible noise, Klaus turned his head to look directly at him. For a moment, his expression was filled with fear, before softening to confusion when he saw his brother.

"Ben?" Reading his lips, Ben recognized his own name as Klaus began to push his way through the crowd. He stayed rooted to the spot despite all his desire and selfish, his mind supplied, need to be seen. Ben in sudden and shocking comprehension, was crushed with the horror of what was about to happen and the hopelessness of preventing it, and was unwilling to make the realization come any faster that was necessary.

"Ben, what are you doing here?" Klaus asked, half laughing. "Did you finally break out of that hell-hole and come for a good time?" Ben looked at him helplessly but Klaus didn't seem to notice. "Good for you!" he continued, reaching out to give Ben high-five, which turned into a friendly shove in the arm when Ben failed to meet his hand. Before Ben could think to move, his hand passed through and Klaus stumbled, his balance thrown off by the lack of the expected solidity of Ben's body.

Klaus caught himself and froze, staring at his own hand for a moment before slowly straightening up. He looked at Ben, who could see the beginnings of terror in his brother's eyes. "Ben?" he asked, sounding so quiet and so scared. Ben didn't say anything.

Klaus' eyes searched him, begging for an explanation, that Ben had discovered a new power, that he'd been blasted with some science-fiction gun on his last mission that made him intangible, anything but what his worst fears were telling him. Ben only looked at him helplessly, unable to speak, or he realized dimly, to cry. Still searching wildly around him for an explanation, Klaus's eyes fell on one of the mirrors that decorated the cramped space of the club's wall.

Ben watched in confusion as Klaus went stiff and the excited flush of his cheeks vanished. For all his life, and in the Nothing that had passed before this point, the shot was the loudest thing Ben had ever heard. Klaus' scream eclipsed it.

Whirling around, in a trained response to identifying a source of an attack, Ben was met only with his own reflection. Confused for a moment, his mind still half-fogged from the Nothing, he stared at himself before something red caught his eye. He shifted an inch to the right and found what was left of the back his own head reflected back to him from another mirror across the bar. For the first time, he realized how literal Klaus had been when he said that spirits look exactly the same as when they die.

His guilt and horror crushed down on his chest, leaving Ben feeling like he couldn't breath as he turned back to Klaus, who had collapsed on the floor, his nails digging so deeply into his head that Ben could see blood beginning to well up.

"Hey, stop!" Ben pleaded, quickly kneeling down. "Stop," he commanded again, forgetting his own physical state as he tried to pry Klaus' hands away, only to pass through him again. Klaus began screaming harder, at which point the people around him seemed to notice. From outside his focused zone, Ben could hear snatches of conversation— something about a "bad trip" and not calling the cops because "they're not getting arrested for some kid who can't control his high". In the end, Ben followed behind as a couple of men who were still sober enough to be coordinated dragged his brother, who had passed out by that point, through the back door of the club and dumped him in the next alley over. Watching them leave, apparently satisfied that they'd given Klaus a chance to be found without having to expose themselves or the club, Ben wished for the first time that he was able to unleash the Horror upon someone.

Instead, he waited through the night next to Klaus' still form, watching him shake in the cold; unable to lay his jacket over Klaus, who was wearing only a mesh crop top and a skirt despite it being December; and unable to find a phone or call out for help to the people who passed by, either unseeing or purposefully ignoring the crumpled body of the boy barely old enough to be considered an adult. With Klaus passed out, it was harder to ground himself to the plain of existence, but Ben held on, determined to be there to watch over Klaus, even if watching was all he could do.

At some point a hellish combination of rain and snow began to fall and Ben absentmindedly pulled up his hood to protect himself, forgetting for a moment that it was unnecessary. He froze half-way through the motion, remembering that he could no longer get wet. Ben was debating if it would make him feel better to pull up his hood and pretend when another use for it came to mind. Though it seemed he could do nothing to change his body, his clothes at least he had control over. Resolving to protect Klaus from the sight of his wound if he could from nothing else, Ben pulled the hood up, draping it carefully so that his undamaged face was still visible.

There he stayed through the night, wondering how he could have ever imagined death to be peaceful, when his own brother had been proof for years that it was anything but; and guilty at how selfish he had been to hurt the last and only person who had come close to understanding him. Ben was so lost in his grief, he did not notice how his back seemed to be pressed up against the wall behind him, or the way his fingers seemed to just brush against Klaus' hair as he hovered his hand above his brother, desperate to reach out to help.

**Author's Notes:**

**Thank you for reading! I always appreciate any and all feedback⏤ constructive criticism is how we get better. **

**The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-TALK (8255)**

**A free, 24/7 confidential service that can provide people in suicidal crisis or emotional distress, or those around them, with support, information, and local resources.**

**Crisis Text Line: 741-741**

**This free text-message service provides 24/7 support to those in crisis. Text 741-741 to connect with a trained crisis counselor right away.**

**If you are thinking of harming yourself, or if you are worried that someone you love might hurt themselves, please reach out for help.**


End file.
